EquiDiaryHow often should the farrier come?
Last checked: 12 October 2026
"Every six to eight weeks" is the answer you will hear, and as a starting point it is a reasonable one. But it is a range written for horses in general. The two numbers that actually matter are the interval your horse's feet need, and the interval you are really keeping, which almost nobody can say without looking it up.
This page is about the interval, not the trim. Nothing here tells you how a foot should be trimmed or shod, whether a horse should go barefoot, or how to judge hoof balance. That is your farrier's work, and your vet's when something is wrong. What follows is about when, and about how you would know.
What the published guidance actually says
Nobody publishes a single number, and the sources that give ranges move them with the seasons. University of Minnesota Extension advises a trim or shoeing at least every six to eight weeks in summer and every six to twelve weeks in winter, when feet grow more slowly, and says plainly that the right interval differs from one horse to the next, because their feet grow at different rates.
The reasons the range is a range are well established:
| What moves the interval | Why |
|---|---|
| Season | horn grows faster in spring and summer and slows down in winter |
| Age | horses under a year old grow horn roughly twice as fast as horses over twelve |
| Shoes | a bare foot wears at the ground as it grows; a shod one cannot, so everything that grows stays on until someone takes it off |
| The horse | feet grow at different rates, on the same yard and the same feed |
So "six to eight weeks" is where the conversation with your farrier starts, not where it ends.
What happens to a foot between visits
The hoof wall grows down from the coronary band at about a quarter to three-eighths of an inch a month, roughly 6 to 10 mm. Over an ordinary interval that is a centimetre or more, and it does not simply make the foot taller: the toe grows forward, the angles flatten, and the point where the horse takes its weight drifts back towards the heels.
Two studies give a sense of how quickly. Leśniak and colleagues photographed the feet of 26 riding-school horses just before and just after the farrier, at the end of a four-to-six-week interval. The farrier's work shortened the hoof wall and steepened the foot (the dorsal wall angle, the heel angle and the heel height all went up), which is another way of saying that the foot at the end of the interval was longer and lower than the one the farrier had left. The authors argue that four to six weeks is already long enough for the load to move towards the heels, and suggest that for horses like theirs, farriery at no more than six weeks may stop that load building up from one interval to the next.
Van Heel, van Weeren and Back measured eighteen sound Warmbloods two days and eight weeks after shoeing, to find out how horses partly counteract that shift in the way they move the lower limb. For an owner, the lesson of both is the same: the change is real, gradual, and invisible from one day to the next. That is why the date of the last visit tells you more than how the feet look this morning.
Neither study sets an interval for your horse. They are small studies of particular groups of horses. They show that something happens over an interval; they cannot tell you how long your horse can go. That is your farrier's judgement, made from the feet at the end of each interval.
The interval you keep is not the one you booked
Booking the farrier "every six weeks" does not produce six-week intervals. The farrier is fully booked the week you wanted. A holiday pushes it back. A lost shoe brings one foot forward and leaves the other three on the old date. Each change is small and reasonable, and none of them is remembered, so the interval you would describe is the one you meant to keep.
Ask how often the farrier comes and the answer is the plan. Subtract the dates and you get what happened, which over a year might read six weeks, seven, nine, six, ten. Nobody chose the ten. The horse lived it anyway, and the only place it shows is a record of dates.
Lost shoes are information
A lost shoe is worth an entry of its own: the date, which foot, and where it came off if you know. One means very little. Three in the last fortnight of an interval is a pattern, and a pattern is exactly what a farrier can use: the interval may be too long for that horse, or something else may be going on, such as wet ground or overreaching. Only the farrier can say which. The record is what lets them see the question.
A lost or loose shoe is also a reason to call before the next booking rather than wait for it.
What to write down at each visit
| What to note | Why it earns its place |
|---|---|
| The date | the interval is the difference between two of them, and nothing else gives it to you |
| What was done | trim, full set, fronts only, a reset, remedial work: "the farrier came" covers a five-minute trim and four new shoes |
| Which feet | a shoe replaced on one foot is not a visit for the other three |
| Who did it | farriers differ: a study of six farriers trimming 40 Warmbloods found significant differences between them on most of the measurements taken, so a change of farrier is worth being able to date |
| What the farrier said | a crack, thrush, a bruise, a change of shoe or pads, a suggestion to come back sooner |
The date, what was done and who did it are the entry. Everything else is optional, and a record that has those three for every visit answers every question on this page.
When a vet asks when the horse was last shod
They will, if the horse goes lame, because the answer narrows the question. A nail driven too close to the sensitive structures of the foot, known as nail bind, can show straight after shoeing or up to about a week later; the British Horse Society advises calling the farrier first, and the vet for anything more serious or prolonged. Lameness that starts at week nine raises different questions entirely. "A month or so ago" helps nobody. A date and a name do, and so does knowing whether it was a new set or the old shoes put back on.
If more than one person looks after the horse
The farrier visit is the textbook gap in a shared horse. The sharer held the horse and assumed the owner would write it down; the owner assumed the yard did. Six weeks later nobody can say whether the horse is due. The fix is the same as for everything else: one agreed place, and the entry made by whoever was there. Sharing a horse goes into what else is worth agreeing before the arrangement starts.
Let the dates do the remembering
In EquiDiary, Farrier is a category with seven types under it: trim, full set, fronts only, reset, corrective shoeing, general hoof care and lost shoe. Every entry carries a date and who did it, so the interval comes from the record rather than from memory. Put the farrier on a rhythm in the care schedule (every six weeks, say) and the next due date counts from the last visit you logged, so logging the visit resets the clock, and a morning email says what is due. A lost shoe is recorded too, but it is not a visit, so it never pushes the next date back. You can also invite your farrier to the horse with access to farrier entries only, so the visit is logged by the person who did the work.
Start free for 3 monthsWhy this page gives ranges, not your horse's number
Our vaccination and parasite guides can cite a protocol for each interval, because a protocol exists. For the farrier there is none: what is published is extension guidance in ranges and a handful of studies on particular groups of horses. We have quoted those as they are, and stopped there.
Your horse's interval is a judgement your farrier makes from the feet at the end of each interval. The most useful thing you can bring to it is a record of what the intervals actually were.
Related guides
- What to record about your horse — the five categories worth logging, and what to leave out
- Sharing a horse — what to agree on before it starts, including who writes things down
- How much work is your horse actually doing? — the same problem with training: counting rather than recalling
Sources
- University of Minnesota Extension — Caring for your horse's hooves (trimming and shoeing intervals by season, and why they differ between horses)
- eXtension HorseQuest — How a horse's hoof grows (growth per month, and the effect of age and season)
- Leśniak K, Williams J, Kuznik K, Douglas P — Does a 4–6 week shoeing interval promote optimal foot balance in the working equine? Animals 7(4):29, 2017
- van Heel MCV, van Weeren PR, Back W — Compensation for changes in hoof conformation between shoeing sessions through the adaptation of angular kinematics of the distal segments of the limbs of horses. American Journal of Veterinary Research 67(7):1199–1203, 2006
- Kummer M, Gygax D, Lischer C, Auer J — Comparison of the trimming procedure of six different farriers by quantitative evaluation of hoof radiographs. The Veterinary Journal 179(3):401–406, 2009
- The British Horse Society — Nail bind in horses (when it shows, and who to call)
Extension guidance is revised from time to time; check the current version, and set your horse's interval with your farrier.
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Next: what to record about your horse — the five categories that earn their place, and what to leave out.